Ambition, grit and grace are this company’s special sauce
South Chicago Dance Theatre will debut at the Harris
Ask a little girl what she wants to be when she grows up, and you’ll get a variety of answers.
Some may say they dream of being a ballerina. Others imagine themselves as pilots, firefighters or president. Kia Smith wanted to run a dance company.
“I’ve wanted to do this since I was 5,” she said. “I’m not kidding.”
Fast-forwarding three decades, Smith, a Chicago native, is living proof that dreams really can come true. Her company, South Chicago Dance Theatre, celebrates its fifth anniversary with five world premieres at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance.
It is a big move for the fledgling company, which has steadily gained ground and earned its stripes as the next big thing to hit Chicago’s dance scene.
“I have a 75-year plan,” Smith said, only half-joking when she said she intends to be there for SCDT’s 75th anniversary in 2092.
Smith’s meticulous planning has made her childhood pipe dream into a reality. And she’s always known her dance company would be hubbed on the South Side.
“My great-grandmother came to Chicago during the Great Migration,” Smith said. “She came here with only one suitcase and my family’s been in the South Chicago area since then.”
South Chicago Dance Theatre rehearses at Hyde Park School of Dance, where Smith started dancing in high school. But she grew up further south, in South Shore and Washington Heights. She eventually plans to shift the company there.
Smith graduated from Western Michigan University with a degree in dance and, after brief stints with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and Lula Washington Dance Theatre, she came home. She performed one season with Joel Hall Dancers and another with Red Clay Dance before launching South Chicago Dance Theatre in 2017.
Since then SCDT has ticked off milestone after milestone leading up to its Harris Theater debut
May 20.
“I wanted our fifth anniversary to feel big,” Smith said. “The Harris felt like the place to do that.”
SCDT’s 40-week contract employs four main company members and three emerging artists. Five guest artists have signed on for this concert, which includes an eclectic blend of new works from an impressive choreographic roster: Smith, Ron De Jesus, Stephanie Martinez, Wade Schaaf and Crystal Michelle Perkins.
Smith calls the performance company the “nucleus” of the organization. In the past five years she simultaneously developed robust education and community programs, the South Chicago Dance Festival, a choreographic fellowship and an international partnership with Choomna Dance Company that sent SCDT to South Korea in 2019.
As if that was not enough, Smith has a full freelance schedule that this year alone has included commissions from Chicago Opera Theatre, Chicago Repertory Ballet, Madison Ballet and Houston Contemporary Dance Company. She was additionally
a choreographic fellow at Jacobs Pillow, a 2022 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist and an artist in residence at Cliff Dwellers Chicago.
That all sounds exhausting, but Smith exudes positivity, ambition and insatiable curiosity.
“I’m really energized by what I’m doing,” said Smith, who spends nearly every waking hour on dance. She attempts work-life
balance by getting involved in her church community.
Smith predicted she spends about half her time in the studio; the rest is administration, capacity-building and managing a growing staff that now includes two Chicago dance veterans: Thodos Dance Chicago alum Jessica Miller Tomlinson serves as rehearsal director, and Anne Kasdorf, who has long been
involved with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s education initiatives, manages SCDT’s school programs. In the past year SCDT expanded from three to 11 school partnerships.
Apart from Smith’s dance education, this young executive artistic director is largely learning on the job, seeking mentorships, networking and basically throwing pasta at the wall to see what sticks. But Smith has an uncanny ability for choosing sticky pasta.
SCDT forged a corporate partnership with the activewear company Athleta for the Harris show, for example, and the dancers were featured in the window display at the Walgreens on Randolph down the street from the theater.
SCDT’s top-notch dancers and choreography don’t hurt either. In 2021 they were selected to perform at Navy Pier as part of Chicago LIVE! Again and at Dance for Life in Millennium Park. As many of her peers were temporarily shut down at the height of COVID-19, Smith found a way to keep going and stay on pace with her 75-year plan.
“I can’t wait around for people to believe in me,” Smith said. “I make my own choices about what we’re going to do and how we’re going to do it.
“I don’t want to feel like we’re fitting into any specific mold that already exists, but I love being a part of the community.”
South Chicago Dance Theatre performs on May 20 at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance, 205 E. Randolph St. Tickets are $15$50 at 312-334-7777 and harristheaterchicago.org.